The much-anticipated new Samsung Galaxy Nexus is the first phone to feature Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich – or ICS if you’re being very 'now' – the latest version of Google’s mobile OS. It also includes one of Samsung’s top of the range HD screens, a dual core processor and 1080p HD video recording – not too aspirational then …

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re. what happened to things getting cheaper over time?

The consumer electronics companies have worked out that smart phones is the best market to be in at the moment; the consumer is able to get a high priced handset on contract for £30 per month rather than having to swallow the real £400+ price in one go, so it's less price sensitive than other sectors, like TV sets, and there's a fashion-factor that drives consumers to replace perfectly usable handsets every couple of years.

Compare the total spend on mobile phones per household with other consumer electronics and you can see why Apple have got where they are today (whether by luck or judgement I couldn't comment).

How much?

A quick shufti at three.co.uk says free on a two year contract.

Pity about only 16Gb though. I'm in the market for a new phone -- my iphone 3GS having not recovered from an impromptu trip down the toilet -- but half the memory and no SD slot on which to store music or videos is not an upgrade, particularly when a screen like that is provided.

Who needs storage?

Does it support USB OTG?

If it does then there's a good chance that you could plug in memory card readers into it and use them instead if you really want to carry around a media collection. Plus it would be interesting to see if an old ipod classic with 160GB can be used as an external HDD for that sort of thing. That should be more than enough space for TV programs and films for long trips.

16GB nowadays is enough

I have a Samsung GS2 and I've barely used the internal memory. All my music is streamed (either from internet or from my NAS box) Yes I'm on a 2gb internet plan from 3 which costs me £19 per month and most months I've used around 1-1.2GB.

I take loads of video but that wirelessly syncs up to G+ and I make a backup copy to my NAS box (over wi-fi)

Some music I cache locally for times I'm on the underground but generally, my internal memory is just for apps.

3 aren't angels - don't get me wrong, their tech support is abysmal. But from the stories I hear from friends about data on o2 and Vodaphone, I'll stick to 3 for the time being.... until that new disruptive 4g entrant comes along ;-)

The reason I decided to go for the S2 instead. I carry about 20GB of "toons" as I have better things to do ( too much Skyrim to play! ) than keep messing about with syncing different sets of music. The 3G coverage on my commute is absolute shite, add to that the 40 mins down the underground on my journey and streaming is a no-no for me I'm afraid.

@samster

3 clearly aren't the only ones that watch what you're doing - in all liklihood illegally incidentally - but they are together with Vodafone the only ones that appear to be illegally sharing information with a company half was around the world and completely outside any sort of control the authorities here.

Notice this more on the tablets (honeycomb) but getting the often non-fully-functioning mobile edition of websiteswhilst on the move is a real pain in the ass. So thanks to google for sorting that out.

Yes

Fixed apparently

Apparently Google/Samsung have completed the revised radio fix for this issue. Paul at MoDaCo - who tends to be pretty reliable with these things - has it available to download if you can't wait for it to be officially pushed out.

I freely admit that I am in many ways impressed, however............

...................no expandable storage? On the flagship *Android* phone? We expect that from "Another Company" but not on the phone that is meant to be the lead device/showcase for the latest iteration of Android and Google's first "trans-platform" effort at that. Particularly not at over half a k.

Don't mention the other company!

Though, seriously, I don't think the 16gb limit is much of a problem — if anything it's a win for the consumer if it removes the distinction between internal and removable storage, making app management that little bit easier. I'll bet that most people don't use their phones for watching video that they've stored locally and 16gb is more than sufficient for a decent amount of music and photos with enough spare to take a few photos and videos while out and about.

@Giles Jones: You seem to be conveniently ignoring something when you say.........

.................."Got to love it, no expansion on a 32GB iPhone and it's a big problem. But 16GB and no expansion is okay because you "don't really need much more"."

IE. That it is obvious from this thread that a fair number of "Droidheads" (myself included) are making it clear that we are *not* impressed with the lack of storage expansion on this device. Just how did you *miss* that?

@Giles Jones (cf: @Arctic Fox, @fandom)

The world isn't actually divided into one group of people that say only positive things about Google and negative things about Apple and another that do only the opposite. So trying to suggest that because you heard people complain about the fixed storage size of the iPhone and now you're hearing people say it's really not a problem concerning an Android then anyone who isn't critical of Android must be a hypocrite is unsupportable. All it means is that some people think fixed storage is a problem and some people don't.

"there’s no microSD slot"

28Gb of music on my Nexus One doesn't go into 16Gb

One thing I love is listening to loads of music in my car over bluetooth audio. My car's head unit has seek controls that work over bluetooth for the next and previous song. So I load up loads of music on my old Nexus One with a 32Gb Micro SD card. My phone sits in my pocket and they connect completely automatically.

What do you mean I have to drop this bit of functionality to get the latest upgrade?

Streaming music on demand as I need it while driving? No, I want my music to play 100% of the time, not 90% of the time (I often stream podcasts live and it's never completely reliable, but much better with 3 than it was with Vodafone).

If 16GB isn't enough for you then maybe buy a different phone. It's not like there's a shortage of android phones with SD slots. The Galaxy Note has 32 built in + an SD slot, higher resolution, faster processor, better camera and a 2500 mAh battery. No curvy screen though.

Too much money

It looks like a great phone and heralds what Android 4.0 is capable of. But it costs too much money. I am hoping that like the Nexus before it that it will kickstart a variety of models, most of which are more affordable.

Lucky then

That android is available on a variety of phones isn't it.

The SGS II has been out for a while now so has come down in price, spec wise it's very similar to this - so perhaps the cheaper option would be to get the Samsung and wait for the ICS update (or root it and install a custom ROM sooner)

Yes

But they're not running Android 4.0. I expect a lot of people would not justify dumping one Android 2.2 / 2.3 phone for another of similar spec but they might if the OS itself has undergone a substantial upgrade.

GJC

Most kind, thank you.

Awesome Phone spoilt slightly by the camera

Having got a Galaxy Nexus as a dev phone from work coming from my own Samsung Galaxy S2 (an incredibly good phone in itself) I've got to say the Galaxy Nexus is fantastic, ICS is a really good update, I managed to get 2 days battery life out of one charge which I've never seen before on a smartphone.

The back button switching sides took a bit of getting used to and the camera is terrible compared to that in the S2. Face Unlock is very good and actually useful.

Not seen the volume bug occur on my handset.

Question, where do the Reg get their prices from? we got this for £430.

Three simple rules

There are three simple rules that most technology literate smartphone users will stick to.

A smartphone MUST have;

1) A memory card slot - preferably MicroSD

2) A Proper SIM slot

3) A removable battery

So many of the flagship smartphones from ALL manufacturers seem to be breaking 1 or 2 of these rules just recently and without any consistency. Manufacturers seem to be sealing in the battery one week, then opening that back up but omitting the memory card slot the next. It doesn't seem to make any sense. They KNOW this pisses customers off and harms retention so why do it?

Maybe not.....

I have a feeling they are perceived requirements rather than actual requirements. I had a phone with all three (Nexus One) and, on reflection, never really worried about them after I'd stuck the sim, microSD and battery in for the first time. I occasionally swapped the sim for a local sim when travelling and that was about it.

Disagree

Not it isn't!

Not yet anyway. As it stands, I have a Galaxy S with 16GB of (ok, partially usable) internal storage, and a lovely big 32gb sd card.

It just about holds my music, and I can stick decent selection of films on the internal storage. It made my ipod redundant. I really don't care if the 16gb is all usable on a shiny new phone, it's still significantly less than what I have available on an 18 month old phone.

Sticking a HD screen on a phone and then limiting the storage like this one does just seems like one step forwards and three back.